


the shape of your scars

by Liberte_Egalite_Broadway



Series: I don't know who I am (but I know who I'm not) [9]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Flashbacks, Just flashbacks angst and Jupeter, Other, Post-Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place, Scars, Stabbing, This has no plot really, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18822139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway/pseuds/Liberte_Egalite_Broadway
Summary: When a job goes horribly wrong for Juno Steel, it brings back memories of a time that a job went horribly wrong for Peter Nureyev. Both of them need to be more careful, it seems.To love someone is to know their scars.





	the shape of your scars

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Quick announcement. I'm starting to run out of inspiration for this series, but with that said, I'm not quite ready for it to be done. If anyone has a prompt of any nature, let me know in the comments! Just bear in mind that I don't want to write anything above a high T rating, or maybe an M for violence and language. 
> 
> It's been so long since I updated this series, I'm just a weird cryptid that shows up once in a while, dumps a bunch of pain on you, and disappears again. 
> 
> If you want to listen to my Jupeter playlist that I listen to while writing, here it is:  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/the_kawaii_hobbit/playlist/1zEe3KvMytZcg2sXFWFvsN?si=V7Mu6wmsSxC5gJ9w4UcrcA
> 
>  
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS  
> Torture, blood, stabbing, manipulation, graphic depictions of blood, mild sensuality.

Juno Steel gets stabbed so often that at this point you could consider it a hobby. 

This situation is surprisingly familiar at this point. They're in a fancy building, a museum in this case. They're working one of the small jobs in the big scheme of the con. Their long, long con. It's been dragging out for so long that Juno wonders if maybe it will never end. Maybe this is how he lives now, jumping from planet to planet, every night a new mark to con. Though they had to lay low for a while, after that mess on the Diana System a while back. Stay clear of the Outer Rim and the resort planets. Small jobs, chipping away to some greater goal. Juno thinks about Oldtown and he wonders if he'll ever uncover what really happened there. 

But none of that is important now, because there's a literal knife jutting out from between his ribs. He staggers back against a statue and coughs a warm, watery cough. The marble of the floor rises up to meet him. When he slides to the floor, it leaves a trail of blood along the statue and down to the floor. He can hear screaming, distant, familiar. His team. His friends. They're shouting to each other and there's stabbing sounds and dying sounds. Is that the Dark Matters agents? They're fighting Dark Matters agents on this case, this whole museum is a base in disguise, a detail that is important but irrelevant in the present circumstance, and  _god_ his side hurts. 

There's one voice he doesn't here, and that's his favorite voice in the world. Where is Peter? Get it together, Steel. 

Juno groans, lifting a blood-smeared hand to the hilt of the knife. Is it better to leave a wound in or pull it out? He learned this before but he can't remember. In the small training room, on board the ship, a knife in his own hand pointed outward with a slender hand folded over his. Another body, up against his from behind, arms hooked around him to guide his motions.  _"Not so tense, love," the thief murmured in his ear, breath warm on his neck. "And don't point it so low or you'll stab yourself by mistake."_

_"I'll stab you if you don't shut up and let me concentrate."_

_"That would be very forward of you." A soft kiss landed on the back of his neck, right behind his ear. Peter_  taught him all about this kind of thing, said he might need to know how to use a knife in a fight. Well, now the fight happened, and Juno doesn't know what to do. Everything is a blur. Is he dying? Is this what dying feels like? He's felt it before, so many times in so many ways, that he's not sure he would even recognize it. His hands are slipping in the blood and more of it keeps coming. He can feel the floor wet beneath him with the same dark red seeping from his body. There's a mural on the ceiling, of angels in flowing robes. They seem to be taunting him.

"JUNO!" 

He tries to sit up when he hears the scream, but he can barely move. High heels echo in the cavernous space, why did they pick this space? Why did they decide to go for this base, even after that long meeting where they determined how risky it would be? Peter was the one who wanted to take the chance. Peter was the one who said hacking a Dark Matters base was always worth the risk. 

"Juno, Juno, oh Juno oh darling, no no no no-" He feels himself lifted out of the puddle of blood and hears a slight splash as Peter drops his knives. A moment later there are familiar arms around him and a familiar scent pressed against his face, and kisses strewn through his hair and across his brow. "Juno, can you hear me? Say something!" Peter's hand covers his on the knife. He can feel his own heartbeat slowing down. 

Get it together, Steel. 

He gasps as more blood spills from his small body. Peter lets out a slight shriek and scoops Juno closer. He's wearing a white shirt with a purple corset, but neither shirt no corset is its original color any longer. Juno's head feels heavy, but he lifts it. He makes himself lift it. He reaches up a trembling bloody hand and catches the thief's face. 

"I," he groans. "I love-you so much."

"I love you too, Juno, now hold on for me, alright? You're going to be -" Peter's voice cuts short. "No! No, no no, Juno - Vespa! VESPA! HE NEEDS HELP, PLEASE!" Juno doesn't know where Vespa is. At this point he doesn't even think he knows where he is. He's covered in blood and his vision is hazy, and all that he can see is a dim outline of Peter's face like the channel cutting out on a stream. There are warm, blood-slicked hands holding his face, and warm lips on his mouth, on his forehead, on his nose, on his temples. "No no, _Ju_ no, please don't leave me again, please don't leave me, don't leave me, I can't live without you darling I can't live without you, Juno no no no -"

Then there's nothing. 

 

There was one time in Peter Nureyev's life when he though he could never feel more afraid, and it was on Brahma when an owl-eyed man approached him on the street. He'd seen the man around the area, even heard rumors that he was some kind of criminal. He could be, or he could be a constable in disguise. A physical embodiment of the lasers that shot from New Kinshasha. 

 _Thought you could use a friend._ The man grinned in a way that would become familiar, and later would become haunting.  _I saw you around here the past few days. You live alone, don't you?_ And when Peter nodded:  _Do you mind if I sit down?_

After he began working with Mag, Peter learned how to stop feeling fear. The emotion would surface, and he would drown it again. Once Mag died he got even better at it. He'd been so afraid so many times in his young life that he wouldn't let it continue. He couldn't, if he wanted to survive. 

 

_(He was afraid staring down Miasma's torture machine)._

Currently, Peter is sprinting through a spaceship with a battered woman and the rolling table between them. The surface of the table is covered with blood and Juno Steel's limp body, a knife still sticking out from his side. They barely made it out of that museum alive. 

"Ready?" Buddy shouts forward. Vespa ran ahead of them to get the medical bay ready. 

"Just about!" The room is all too familiar to Peter, with its blinking monitors, the smell of painkillers, that ridiculous shelf-bed built into the wall, which Jet and Rita are currently throwing sheets over. "Bud, get me a needle!" Vespa shouts, snapping on plastic gloves. "Fay, get that table over here!" It takes him a delirious minute to remember that Fay Arrow is his current alias. He grabs the side of the table and spins it over to Vespa. The motion seems to upset Juno; he rolls over slightly and moans something incomprehensible. Vespa grits her teeth as she jabs the needle into a jar of liquid. "What the hell happened? I thought he was right behind you!"

"So did I," Peter breathes heavily. Buddy is plugging Juno into some machine, a heart monitor, something, and now there's the sound of beeping in the room in addition to the smell of blood. Vespa pushes back Juno's sleeve and the lady recoils.

"Stop," he gasps. His eyes blink rapidly.  _(He might not even be aware what he's saying)._ "No..."

"Steel, listen to me." Vespa's tone is firm. "I need you to lie still." 

"No," and then he's twisting away, and there's more blood leaking out of him. "Get away from me," he groans. "Peter -" 

"Steel, we're not in the fight anymore. It's me. We're back on the ship." Vespa looks frantic. She brandishes the needle again. "

"Oh for god's sake!" Peter snatches the needle and kneels next to the table. Juno's bleared eyes fix on his face as Peter catches his hand and kisses it. "You are the love of my life," he says. "I am so sorry about this." He rams the needles into Juno's artery and pushes the plunger until the syringe is empty and Juno's eyes slide shut again. The monitor is going crazy now. The smell of blood is sharper than before. 

"I need that vial!" Vespa is shouting, and Buddy is shouting, "Rita! Put pressure on that!" and Jet is blundering over to the carefully organized shelves and trying to grab small vials with his enormous hands, and Juno is limp and he looks dead. Peter can feel his heart racing, a scream building in the back of his throat.  _(Juno is going to die, Juno is going to die, Juno is going to die)._

 

_"You know you're both going to die."_

 

He hates hearing Miasma's voice in his memories. 

_Miasma's eyes were disinterested. Peter hung by his wrists from an electrical machine with his hair in front of his eyes, and he managed a weak smile._

_"How could I not?" he replied. "You have told me several times."_

_Miasma glanced at her nearest assistant and nodded slightly. The man pressed a button on a remote control, and a moment later the restraints on Peter's wrists and ankles snapped back. He did not step down so much as topple out of the machine and into a graceless heap on the floor, where he lay for a moment before he managed to climb back to his feet. Miasma leaned against the wall and took out a box of cigarettes. "Sit down," she snarled._

_Peter stayed standing. Miasma shrugged._

_"Suit yourself." Her dark eyes surveyed him as she lit one of her cigarettes. (He hated that look, assessing his injuries. Like he was a piece of meat, like she was deciding how she wanted to cut him). "You are a fool, thief," she sighed through a puff of smoke. "If you had only stayed with the deal we created, none of this would have happened to you."_

_"I've found this quite interesting, as a matter of fact. I've had many experiences in my career, but torture was never on the list until now."_

_"Don't get cute with me." She narrowed her eyes. Then, unexpectedly, "Would you like a cigarette?"_

_His heart leapt slightly. He would love a cigarette. He didn't smoke often, but he hadn't had one in the past few days and even a trace amount of nicotine would feel good at this point. It would feel like something other than pain (there was still a trickle of blood along his left cheek). Still, this could be a trap, so he says nothing._

_Miasma extracts a cigarette from the box and tips it to him. "Answer a question and you can have it." He stays silent, so she poises the question. "Why are you protecting Juno Steel?"_

_(Well, that was just unfair. She'd asked a question that he himself didn't know the answer to.)_

_He kept his gaze on her face as he tried to process the question, not letting his composure break. Why was he protecting Juno Steel? (Because his scowl that became a smile because his gruff voice because he was so beautiful and so adorable when caught off guard). She was right, of course. If there was some point, she'd proved it. He barely knew Juno Steel, and yet he allowed himself to be strapped into a machine and tortured for hours rather than let Juno be hurt (because he looked at things like they mattered because he tasted like whiskey because he was an adventure in a world where nothing mattered because his smile because his hair) and it was a greater risk than anything ever had been in his twenty years on the run thus far. (Because Peter didn't want the life he thought he was going to have anymore.)_

_"I want an honest answer," said Miasma._

_"Because he makes me feel something." He laughed slightly. "You want to kill us, you said? Well, you'll have to make sure you kill me first, because you'll never get to him as long as I'm alive."_

_She snapped the box of cigarettes shut. "Put him back in the machine."_

 

Peter sits on the edge of the hospital bed in the spaceship, listening to the heart monitor. The others are asleep. Vespa did the best she could, which is very good, but none of them are sure if it will be enough. Juno is asleep, so beautiful and so small. He looks like if he curled up at all he'd disappear. Nureyev holds his hand and kisses the scar on his knuckle. 

"Please don't leave me again," he says. "Please, Juno. I need you."

_(Before Peter met Juno, he thought he would die in a back alley one day.)_

"Juno -" 

_(Then he met Juno, and suddenly he wanted his life to continue. To mean something more than dangerous jobs and quick stops on planets.)_

Peter climbs into the hospital bed next to his lady, even though Vespa told him not to. He's ginger, careful. He wants to scoop Juno up into his arms and smother him in an embrace, but instead he reclines next to him, barely touching him. He lets one hand trail over Juno's curls so lightly he can barely feel them. 

"I love you," he says. "More than I have ever loved anyone. Please don't die on me. I don't want to live without you." No reply. This room is too cold. He leaves for a moment, with a kiss on Juno's forehead and a promise to return quickly, and he gathers up an armful of blankets from their bedroom. They share a room now, a bed too. Juno usually complains about Peter being messy.  _"You can't just leave your heels across the floor like that, they're going to get ruined."_

_"Then I'll steal some new ones."_

_"That's - dammit, you really are impossible. And **why** is your coat on the floor, I literally put up a hook right there for you to hang it on."_

_"I'm sorry." He slipped an arm around Juno's waist, a hand on his lower back, and lifted one eyebrow. "Could I make it up to you... by putting even more clothes on the floor?"_

_Juno had seen Peter's_ _scars before, and by now he was comfortable with letting them be seen. There were scars up and down his arms from the torture machine. There was another scar on the back of his knee from one time he had to jump out a moving car. There was yet another scar along his side from a laser blast in a recent job. And Juno had even more; knife wounds on his sides and bullet marks on his legs and one long scar over his shoulder, and scars where broken glass had been surgically removed from his hands and another surgery scar above his eyebrow and that one signature cut over his nose. There were stretch marks on Juno's stomach and bags under his eyes. He was the single most beautiful human in the entire galaxy._

_"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," Peter whispered against Juno's collarbone._

The nightshirt is a stark white against Juno's dark skin and hair. Peter hopes the lady won't mind him changing his clothes like this, but he can't leave Juno in that blood-soaked shirt. Not sanitary. Not safe. He smoothes the blankets over him for what must be the fortieth time tonight and lowers him gently back into them. Juno's head lolls to one side into the pillow. Peter settles in next to him again. 

"I love you," he says.

_(The heart monitor keeps beeping)._

"I thought my life would go one way," he tells Juno, "and then I met you and you made it another. When you left me it changed again, and yet here we are." He kisses the back of Juno's hand. "Don't leave me again," he says. "Not after I've found the existence I want." He's struggling not to cry.  _(Maybe he should just go ahead and cry)._ He closes his eyes tight and wishes he could wake up in a different world where Juno wasn't dying. 

"Peter?" 

He gasps and lifts his face. Juno's eyes are half-open, his lips slightly parted. Peter laughs weakly and kisses Juno's forehead. 

"Yes, love, I'm here. How are you feeling?"

Juno ignores him. His fingers tangle weakly in the front of Peter's shirt. "C'mere," he mumbles, drawing Peter under the blankets with him. He nestles up against him. 

"I'm sorry -"

"Shut up." Juno inches up his shirt to expose the set of stitches marching across his ribs and grimaces when he sees it. "Great," he mumbles. He pulls Peter's hand over the spot. " 'm not gonna die," he mumbles. "I promise. Stay here." 

And then he falls asleep again. Peter lies beside him in the dark, fingertips brushed lightly across the new scar on Juno's skin. He can feel his warmth, and can feel his gentle breath. 

 

_Miasma tried to get to Juno, back then. Peter fought her off._

_"I told you, Miasma," he spat. "Me. First."_

 

"I love you so much," he tells Juno, but Juno is asleep now. Peter follows a moment later, lulled by the rhythm of Juno's heartbeat. Skin pressed against his new scar. 

Juno lives. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was so out of pace with my usual style and I wrote it really late at night. Hopefully you guys still enjoyed it.
> 
> Cry with me on my new tumblr: this-is-a-podcast-fanblog.tumblr.com


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